Author Deborah Jian Lee"So when I became a leader of my college Christian fellowship group, Intervarsity, I was stunned by the entrenched conservatism of so many of my Christian peers. Sure, the group had some theological and political diversity, and I had some amazing young staff mentors (some of whom were people of color) who totally got me. But the overwhelming culture resisted my initiatives on racial justice and gender equality, equated voting Republican with authentic … [Read more...]

LOUISVILLE, KY—At first glance, high school senior Lucas Faber, 18, seems like any ordinary gay teen. He's a member of his school's swing choir, enjoys shopping at the mall, and has sex with other males his age. But lately, a growing worry has begun to plague this young gay man. A gnawing feeling that, deep down, he may be a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian. "I don't know what's happening to me," Faber admitted to reporters Monday. "It's like I get these weird urges sometimes, and suddenly I … [Read more...]

Bad art and bad sex matter for the same reason that bad religion matters. A brain can get used to anything. Once we’re used to something, it starts to seem okay. That capacity to normalize failures is why there are people who think that child abuse is “just discipline,” a Big Mac is “good food,” a rotting shark is “good art,” and hooking up with a predatory stranger is “good sex.”The same pattern of brain damage happens to the millions of people like me who were hurt as children by certain fo … [Read more...]

"Any time right-wing conservatives declare that they are trying to restore or reclaim something, we should all be very afraid. Usually, this means the country or, in this case, the state of Indiana is about to be treated to another round of backward time travel, to the supposedly idyllic environs of the 1950s, wherein women, and gays, and blacks knew their respective places and stayed in them." So writes Brittney Cooper arguably America's most prescient commentator on race, women, politics and … [Read more...]

The Muslim country (Pakistan), which has banned content on at least 17 websites to block "offensive" and "blasphemous" material, is the world's leader in online searches for pornographic material. Meanwhile IN THE USA- the Southern Bible Belt (Garter Belt?) is the #1 PORN user in the USA. Birds of a feather..?...According to Google surveys and Gallup Polls, Southern evangelicals in the USA and conservative Muslims--in places like Pakistan and Iran and Saudi Arabia --stand united in th … [Read more...]

The Bible Belt is the Porn Belt. According to a new study, the more you say you literally believe in the Bible, the more you watch porn. At least that's the inevitable fact-based conclusion drawn from the biggest study of internet Google porn searches by region. Here's some excerpts from a brilliant article by Valerie Tarico first published in Alternet that proves the point. (Reprinted by permission.)Smut in Jesusland: "The honest truth is that we all have our failings, Christian or not, li … [Read more...]